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Urbárium Census of 1767

We had previously mentioned the 1767 Urbárium census in our latest Research Tip #12, but we felt it needed much more attention. As previously mentioned, these "records were ordered by Empress Mária Terézia in 1767 to help grasp a better understanding of the peasantry of Hungary. The over 300,000 pages of material contains a wealth of information such as how much livestock a peasant had, who the serf owed his obligations to and the amount of land the serf cultivated. These records only provide the name of the 'head' of the household/land. Most images are available for this collection and the front page [of the website] is available in English. Navigation of the documents are easily organized by county and then town or village name, alphabetically. Archaic or older spelling variations for the town or village name may be used. These records are not indexed by name."

Carl Kotlarchik and Martin Votruba have created and provided column header translations for the 1767 Urbárium census. More information about Martin Votruba and his resources can be found here. We have based these translations entirely off their work, with only a few minor changes and updates.

Kereszt és Vezeték Nevek = first name and surname

Jobbágy Helynek Minémösége = indicates the size of the farm in terms of a whole or fraction of a sessio; the size of a sessio varied depending on the quality of the land; a sessio included a house, barn, garden area, cultivation field and meadowland used to produce hay

Jobbágy helynek = peasant’s place (the farm)

Belső & Külső = (Internal & External) indicates the location of the land either out in the fields or inside the village

Mivolta = the nature of or type of land

Posonyi Mérőre való = Pozsonyi Mero = Bratislava Merica; this is a unit of grain equal to about 14 dry gallons; it is used here to measure the land under the house and barns and the garden the size of which is determined by how many Bratislava merica would be need to sow this land if it were not built upon;

Szántó Föld, Hold = ploughland; this a measure of the number of “holds” of land that the peasant had under cultivation; a hold is equivalent to ~1.066 acres

Rét Ember Vágó = meadowland used for growing hay the size of which is indicated by the number of men required to cut this hayfield in one day

No. = number

Esztendőbeki Szolgálatok avagy Robot = yearly service requirement; this is the peasant’s days of obligation to work on the squire’s land each year based on the size of the land he farmed

Marhás Robot Két Marhával = These are the number of days the peasant had to work on the squire’s estate if he used draft animals; note that only oxen and horses were used as draft animals

Vagy e hel[y]ettkézi Szolgálat = these are the number of days a peasant had to work on the estate if he did not use draft animals

Nap = day

Kilenczed = ninth; the peasant farmer had to give the 1/9th part of his crops to the noblemanAdózások = taxes

Kappany = capons; a castrated rooster used for food; castration made the meat more tender

Csérke = chickens

Tojás = eggs

No. = number

Belső ház-hely, és Rétek fogyatkozásának helyrehozása, a' melyből kilenczed nem adattatik = this says that the peasant did not have to give 1/9th of the things he grew in his house garden or in depleted or damaged fields

First off, I'm not entirely sure why the content is listed as beginning in 1799, since civil registration didn't begin in Hungary until October 1, 1895. From what I can see there are no images available for browsing and minimal indexes are available. The source information states the following for the database:

Original data: Hungary, Civil Registration, 1895-1980. Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 2013.
These indexes came from FamilySearch, where they are easily browsable and searchable (for the sliver of what has been indexed so far). For Free. I began to wonder if the indexes were indeed one and the same from FamilySearch, so I did some searching. I know for a fact that I indexed and arbitrated the civil registration records for the town of Szentmihály in Szabolcs county, where my great-grandfather was born. I …

Much to the delight of my colleagues and Hungary Exchange Facebook group, many Hungarian church records have become digitized and freely viewable online at FamilySearch.org. You can now browse and enjoy these records at home, instead of needing to frequent your local FHC, and you will spend less money from having to order the microfilm. The Reformed and Roman Catholic baptism indexes, as well as the Jewish Vital Records indexes, don't appear to link up with their proper digitized image yet, so there certainly is still work to be done behind the scenes.

The best way to find your parish is to search the microfilm catalog, under the Place category, at FamilySearch.org/catalog/search. Most localities will come up this way, however not all villages or towns had a church or synagogue for each religion - hence requiring the citizens to travel to the nearest neighboring village. There are several gazetteers that help guide you to the correct parishes and many of them are now online. Here y…

Many are familiar with the Reformed and Roman Catholic baptism index collections at FamilySearch.org, however not all are aware that there is further beneficial information on these indexes other than the genealogical content. The indexes include source material to aid in viewing the actual image. In this article, I will explain the process in locating the digitized images for these baptisms and I will be using my 2x-great-grandfather's baptism index as an example. [All images to the right can be clicked for further enlarging.] On the right side of the index, you will see what is listed as the "GS Film number". "GS" stands for Genealogical Society, which is otherwise known as the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. Take the newly-found microfilm number and search for it in the microfilm catalog at FamilySearch.org. This search will result in the exact catalog title being found; click on that title and continue onward to review what is avail…